2015 Address to Parents of First-Year Students

There is an amazing amount of positive energy on campus today! Good afternoon. What a great day for move-in. It is my great pleasure to welcome the parents and family members of the Class of 2019 to Lehigh University. From our family to yours, welcome. Lehigh is a special place made up of special people, and you got to meet some of them earlier today: our Lehigh Brown volunteer army of students, staff, and faculty who pitched in to help you unload your vehicles. I enjoyed meeting many of you this morning on my tour of the residence halls while carrying boxes, clothing, refrigerators, and the like. I even saw a couple plastic crates with the first-year reading books Ready Player One and The Most Human Human, and so I know everyone is ready for our upcoming book discussion.

Move-in day is one of our great Lehigh traditions, and I hope it helped your sons and daughters to feel at home. As I plan to tell the class on Sunday at their convocation, I have something very important in common with them: We are all first years. You see, this is my second month on the job as Lehigh’s president, so we begin this adventure together; this is my class. And I am confident that we all made the right decision by coming to Lehigh.

The Lehigh Class of 2019 is a diverse group: It hails from 45 states and 27 countries. The Lehigh Class of 2019 is an intelligent group: The average SAT score is 1329 – including one perfect score of 1600!

The Lehigh Class of 2019 is a multi-talented group: One student speaks five languages … another was part of a team that built a telescope … we have a law firm intern … a Special Olympics volunteer coach … a Girl Scout Gold Award winner … a performer of Samoan and Hawaiian dance … and multiple members of the class have performed on stage at Carnegie Hall. One student built a computer and 3-D printer, then 3-D printed cell phone covers for his counselors.  In short, this is an amazingly talented group of young women and men. They are here because they belong here. They earned it, each and every one of them.

Now, despite all that, I am sure you have some anxieties today. As parents, it’s only natural. You may be wondering if your son or daughter is really ready for all this. Will they be safe here? Will they make the right social decisions?

Will all this be worth it, will they get a good job after graduation? After all, this is a big investment on your part, and nothing is more important to you than your child’s future. You have my assurance that we will take good care of your child.

And this is how I can make that assurance: I have personally selected one parent to remain here on campus and watch over your sons and daughters. That parent is me.

My son is a member of the Class of 2019, so I have a special interest in this class. And I promise I will remain vigilant at all times. I will be out and about on campus, engaging with students. Nothing will escape my watchful eye!

Today is the beginning of a tremendous journey in your child’s life, as they pass from your family to ours. In the Lehigh family, there is no greater priority than the well-being of each and every one of our students. Safety is a shared responsibility. We will do our part.

At the same time, we need students to do their part by using good judgment and making smart decisions, particularly with regard to their social life.

At Lehigh, we pride ourselves on being an inclusive living and learning environment. You may have noticed on your campus visits a framed document titled, “The Principles of Our Equitable Community.” Your sons and daughters will see these Principles in their classroom buildings, residence halls, and athletic facilities. The fundamental message is this: At Lehigh, we celebrate our diversity, and we embrace our academic, cultural, economic, and physical differences. We respect one another, we look out for one another, and we help one another succeed. These Principles are not just words on paper; they are what we believe in and what we expect of our entire campus community.

We also pride ourselves on fostering student success. A successful student is an engaged student, and the opportunities for engagement here are many and varied:
We encourage academic experiences to spill out of classrooms into residence hall rooms, libraries, dinner conversations; we aspire for our students to engage research – learning the art of discovery – with world-renowned faculty; to learn and experience new cultures through our study abroad programs; to work, to lead, and to learn from one another in our clubs and organizations; to take part in intramural and varsity sports; to experience the arts; to enjoy our local community—the list goes on and on. This breadth of opportunities is the hallmark of a Lehigh education, and I will continually urge your sons and daughters to take full advantage of it.

Lastly, you should know that your children are now part of a distinguished Lehigh family numbering over 70,000 alumni worldwide. Our alumni are fiercely loyal; they welcome and engage new students as their own. In fact, at the rally this Saturday night, your sons and daughters will be adopted by the Class of 1969 and they will have the opportunity to meet members of that class. Our alumni serve the university in extraordinary ways, and they are an invaluable resource to our students. I met an alum during move-in today who told me that when his son graduates in 4 years, his family will have received 110 years of education at Lehigh!

By the time your child leaves Lehigh, they will have received a first-rate education and forged some of the strongest relationships of their lives. It could be with their roommate, a teammate, a lab partner, a professor, a member of the support staff – or, more likely, all of the above. But these relationships will be enduring and, I guarantee you, they will be special.

Again, welcome to the 150-year-old Lehigh family. I hope to see many of you back on campus for Family Weekend in October, but please know that you are always welcome here. We want all of you to be as much a part of the Lehigh family as your sons and daughters. So please, don’t be strangers. Come and see us often.